Monday 1 December 2008

Philip Lee Harvey | Documentary Silver Award Winner


Silver winner of My Back Yard 4 - documentary photography.

George Rodger

The images awarded silver place in the series category were taken by Philip Lee Harvey during a project retracing the footsteps of British photojournalist George Rodger 60 years ago. Land Rover contacted Philip with a commission to commemorate the brand's own 60th anniversary. When asked to suggest ideas which reflected 1948, the Magnum co-founder Rodger's journey into Africa immediately sprung to mind. "I suppose there's an aspect of school-boy adventure to it all," says Philip, "and Rodger is a photographer I've known about since I was a boy. He lived in the area where I grew up, and I was always aware of that, even though he was a very quiet man."

Philip retraced Rodger's journey through the Maasai Mara, the mountains of Uganda and the Sudan, revisiting the three main tribes which he saw on his 1948 journey.

Additional text

P.L.Harvey | LPA Featured Gallery Haiti

P.L.Harvey | Gallery 1839 - Fine art print sales

Samira Schulz | Documentary Competition Gold Winner


Theatre Fatale

Gold winner of My Back Yard 4 - documentary photography.

Samira Schulz transformed her backyard into a set for the winning series of images Le Theatre Fatale. The series developed organically: the idea came to Samira one sunny day in her garden and friends and neighbours were asked to improvise on a constructed stage-set. Samira explains, "I asked them to interpret their new roles in response to circumstances and to the object of desire. Through improvisation, the experiment resulted in a tragicomedy inspired by stereotypes that have been incorporated into our common perception through movies, advertising, TV and other media."


Samira decided to interpret the brief for My Backyard 4 very literally when she entered the images. She says, "As much as the term back yard is debatable, so is the genre of documentary photography. These images would most certainly not fit into the general understanding of documentary at first sight but, arguably, they are documentation of a happening that took place just there."

Samira came to London from Berlin in 2001 in order to study at the London College of Communication. Her original plan was do a one-year foundation course, but she soon decided to stay and continue with a BA (Hons) in Photography.

Samira uses her photography to capture what she can not express in words. "Rather than depicting reality," she explains, "I try to create a different one: this counts for my staged work as well as for my snapshot photography." She is considering continuing the idea of Le Theatre Fatale throughout the evolving seasons, but her next project involves a trip to South America where she will work with both still and moving images.

View Samira's LPA folio

The brief,

My back yard …. the good , the bad and the down right ugly.

What do you consider to be your back yard? Your block? Your neighbourhood? Your town or city? The more expansive of you might even consider it to be the planet we inhabit. Whichever way you look at it, your back yard is a very personal space – ideal subject matter for the documentary photography. This is an opportunity to comment on the people and places that are important to you, a chance to introduce us to the society, sights, secrets that are very special to your own back yard.

LPA Member David Knight in Sydney : New Work


David Knight has been working in collaboration to produce images for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra Season 2009 Subscriptions Brochure.

David says,

"From my perpective, this has been a very interesting project. Although landscapes that showcased Sydney were required, I also had to find locations that would support having a large canvas/ portrait placed into them in post production.

The client was keen to have images that showed iconic Sydney landmarks, and I did in fact reference the Sydney Opera House and Harbour bridge in a number of shots, however, since the target audience of the 2009 brochure mostly live in Sydney all ready ( ie, they are Sydneysiders not tourists) I did not have to be too literal about this in every shot.

I think we have successfully given the flavour of Sydney, and whilst people who do not live here will not recognise every location, I think most Sydneysiders would have a fairly good idea where they are."

More information and images.

David Knight: New Work


David Knight
has been working in collaboration to produce images for the
"From my perpective, this has been a very interesting project. Although landscapes that showcased Sydney were required, I also had to find locations that would support having a large canvas/ portrait placed into them in post production.

The client was keen to have images that showed iconic Sydney landmarks, and I did in fact reference the Sydney Opera House and Harbour bridge in a number of shots, however, since the target audience of the 2009 brochure mostly live in
Sydney all ready ( ie, they are Sydneysiders not tourists) I did not have to be too literal about this in every shot.

I think we have successfully given the flavour of Sydney, and whilst people who do not live here will not recognise every location, I think most Sydneysiders would have a fairly good idea where they are."